Mr. Hovind, a former public school science teacher with his own ministry, Creation Science Evangelism, and a hectic lecture schedule, said he had opened Dinosaur Adventure Land to counter all the science centers and natural history museums that explain the evolution of life with Darwinian theory. There are dinosaur bone replicas, with accompanying explanations that God made dinosaurs on Day 6 of the creation as described in Genesis, 6,000 years ago.2004-05-03, door Inne ten Have

The Crusade Against Evolution

In the beginning there was Darwin. And then there was intelligent design. How the next generation of "creation science" is invading America's classrooms.

On a spring day two years ago, in a downtown Columbus auditorium, the Ohio State Board of Education took up the question of how to teach the theory of evolution in public schools. A panel of four experts - two who believe in evolution, two who question it - debated whether an antievolution theory known as intelligent design should be allowed into the classroom.2004-10-18, door Inne ten Have

Only about a third of Americans believe that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is a scientific theory that has been well supported by the evidence, while just as many say that it is just one of many theories and has not been supported by the evidence. The rest say they don't know enough to say.

Forty-five percent of Americans also believe that God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago.

A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word.

The second-term election victory of George Bush - and India's own experience with Hindu nationalist BJP rule, off and on, through the last decade - captures a dangerous moment in world history. We are witnessing the world's first and the world's largest liberal constitutional democracies, officially committed to secularism, slide toward religious nationalism. By voting out the BJP and its allies in the last election, the Indian voters have halted this slide, at least for now - a heartening development, compared to the virtual take-over of America by Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists.

The question that interests me in this electoral route to faith–based governance is how this counter–revolution is actually accomplished, or to put it differently, how the spirit of secularism gets subverted, without any formal abrogation of secular laws. Unless we understand the ideological mechanism of this sacralisation of politics, we will not be able to combat the ongoing coups against secularism under nominally secular democracies.

Most Americans do not accept the theory of evolution. Instead, 51 percent of Americans say God created humans in their present form, and another three in 10 say that while humans evolved, God guided the process. Just 15 percent say humans evolved, and that God was not involved.

These views are similar to what they were in November 2004 shortly after the presidential election.

Conventional wisdom says that the primary reason why so many people do not accept Darwin's theory of evolution is that they find it threatening to their religious beliefs. There is no question that religion is a big part of the reason behind the large number of people who reject evolution. But I am convinced that just as often, the cause and effect is reversed: people hold onto their fundamentalist religious beliefs because evolution by natural selection -- the strongest argument against an Old Testament-type creator -- is so counter-intuitive to so many.

I arrive at this conclusion in a somewhat roundabout way. I have long been fascinated with systems that tap into the "wisdom of crowds" -- systems that, in fact, have much in common with Darwinian evolution. Such systems doubtfully conflict with anyone's religion, and yet, I see the same sort of resistance to them as I see to evolution. The arguments against them are remarkably similar.

This hypothesis, if borne out, suggests that advocates of reason -- moderates, atheists, and the science minded -- might consider a different tact if they wish to convince more people to reconsider their fundamentalist, anti-scientific beliefs. It may be easier to first go after this non-intuitiveness, starting with these places where the conceptual difficulty is not exacerbated by the conflict with their comforting and culturally embedded religious belief.